In general, a clothes treating apparatus having a drying function, such as a dryer, is an apparatus that blows hot air generated by a heater to the interior of a drum to absorb moisture of a drying target to perform drying on the target. A clothes treating apparatus may be classified into an exhaust-type dryer and a circulation-type dryer depending on a method of processing moist air generated when a target is dried by absorbing moisture thereof.
The exhaust-type dryer uses a method of discharging moist air from a drum to the outside, and to this end, the exhaust-type dryer requires an exhaust duct for discharging high temperature moist air containing moisture evaporated within a drum to the outside. In this case, a gas may be used as a heat source and carbon monoxide, or a similar combustion product, is also discharged, and thus, the exhaust duct needs to reach an outdoor area. A circulation-type dryer uses a method of condensing moist air discharged from a drum by a heat-exchanger to remove moisture, and transferring moisture-removed dry air to the drum to re-circulate air.
As for configuration, a circulation-type clothes dryer may include a body, a drum rotatably installed within the drum, a circulation duct having both ends connected to the drum to form a flow path along which air is circulated, a heater installed within the circulation duct to heat air, a blowing fan forcibly circulating air, and the like. The circulation-type clothes dryer further may include a heat-exchanger or a condenser removing moisture included in air discharged from the drum.
The condenser may be structured for heat-exchanging air or a coolant introduced from the outside of a dryer with air discharged from a drum to reduce a temperature and humidity of exhaust air sufficient to be re-supplied to the interior of the drum. As the condenser, a water cooling-type condenser using a coolant supplied from an external water source or an air cooling-type condenser using ambient air may be used. When using an air cooling-type heat-exchanger, cooling air heated through heat exchanging with exhaust air is discharged to the outside of a body.
In some cases, in order to reduce energy consumed during a drying process, thermal energy generated by a heater is used only for drying clothes as much as possible. To this end, a heat pump may be used to heat hot air supplied to a drum with thermal energy of air discharged from the drum, or a behavior of a drum may be controlled to allow hot air to come into contact with clothes evenly during a drying process.